Debate continues over tourism brand for Loveland

What: Loveland Community Marketing Commission monthly meeting. Commissioners' agenda calls for settling on a new brand for tourism and business development.

When: 6 p.m. Wednesday.

Where: City Hall's Council Chamber, 500 E. Third St.

You've got trouble, folks, right here in Sweetheart City.

With a capital "T," and that rhymes with "B," and that stands for "brand."

More than two years since the formation of Loveland's Community Marketing Commission, with its charge to spend lodging tax dollars on tourism and business promotion, the city has yet to settle on a brand that will carry a message to visitors and business prospects from outside the region.

Not that a lot of time, effort and money hasn't been poured into the process.

More than a month ago a new branding campaign -- with a new, multipurpose logo and a choice of tag lines -- came into public view.

And this week, judging by a flurry of emails circulating among city staff members and elected officials, a couple of council members and a handful of residents seem poised to ask for a do-over.

The branding devices, created by Loveland artist John Metcalf and his firm Perfect Square, are designed specifically for tourism and business promotion.

A logo that can be interpreted variously as a letter "L," a heart, or a piece of sculpture does the work along with these tag lines: "Loveland: Everything You Love," and "Loveland: Colorado's Masterpiece."

'Not for Lovelanders'

But the crux of the controversy is the age-old, time-tested "Sweetheart City" identity that some people say is threatened by the new tourism brand.

"It's not for Lovelanders," marketing commission chairwoman Linda Hughey said of the new product. "It's for the rest of the world. ... The lodging tax is paid by tourists, and the money it generates is for the purpose of bringing more tourists here."

Use of the new designs does not represent an abandonment of the Sweetheart City handle, she said.

"We love the Sweetheart City," she said. "There's nothing wrong with the Sweetheart City. We want everyone to know about the Sweetheart City."

That tradition remains, Hughey said, and will be employed in conjunction with promoting the city's wedding industry, the Valentine Remailing Program and other February events.

City councilor Daryle Klassen drew a line in opposition to the new brand in an email last week to Loveland City Manager Bill Cahill and economic development director Betsey Hale.

Backers of the three versions of the new brand "are paying zero attention to what the public has to say," Klassen wrote.

'Noisemakers'

"Damn the torpedoes, straight ahead is the obvious tactic. When the explosion occurs, and it will, it will be the council catching the flack. This process needs to go out to the citizenry, and then when they speak, government needs to listen. I will be among the noisemakers."

Councilor John Fogle, in anther emailed message, questioned whether the public had been sufficiently involved in the process, despite an 18-month-long series of public meetings, individual interviews, telephone surveys of 400-plus residents and of scores more out-of-town visitors conducted as part of the brand preparations.

Others are of a mind to pick one of the options and get on with the promotion business, using the nearly $1.6 million in lodging tax money that has accumulated since voters in 2009 approved the 3 percent surcharge on hotel accommodations.

'Get It Out There'

Councilor Ralph Trenary, in an email on Friday to other councilors and the city manager, said the continuing branding debate threatened to halt that work.

"I am concerned that a two-and-one-half-year professional effort is in danger of being delayed or even derailed by misinformation and hysteria," Trenary wrote.

Hale said that the people who matter most -- those in the lodging and tourism industry -- had roundly endorsed the new brand ideas.

"They're the ones who are most affected, and they're the ones who are most supportive," she said.

The usually unflappable Mayor Cecil Gutierrez, during a May 1 council meeting where the designs got a lukewarm reception, showed his patience with the process was more than wearing thin.

"Just pick one," he said through pursed lips. "Pick one, and get it out there."